Brinksmanship to prevent government shutdown…

According to cartoonist David Horsey, the art of hostage taking as taught by Republican U.S. House Speaker John Boehner is a good study in brinksmanship, in my opinion. Given the amount of hyperbole and grandstanding involved over the previous weeks, it would appear that David Horsey's cartoon may have hit the nail on the head; the Republican strategy appears to have worked.

However, before anyone breathes heartfelt sighs of relief, after saving federal funding for Planned Parenthood I should hasten to point out we aren't through with the federal budget by a long shot. There are still lots of sacrificial lambs awaiting delivery to the altar politic before the ink is dry on the national budget, a fact I am certain Speaker Boehner is wisely keeping beneath his collar.

In case you are wondering, why was Planned Parenthood chosen to be Boehner's hostage? Just last Friday, for example, Republican Sen. John Kyl of Arizona fired the opening salvo on Planned Parenthood when he said on the Senate floor that "if you want an abortion you go to Planned Parenthood. And that's well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does."

Get used to the deception. It just isn't so.

Despite the fact Kyl was eventually forced to rescind his statement, as despite Planned Parenthood being a truly big target to Conservative Republicans, over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does do is NOT abortions. So it stands to reason when Boehner was searching for a highly-visible hostage that he could broker into tax cuts, who else could he grab?

Once President Obama sensed that Boehner was willing to hold Planned Parenthood as his hostage, and that Republicans were, for the most part, behind the elimination of federal funding for Planned Parenthood, he had to acquiesce and cave in to the other demands to save us from government shutdown.

Of course, this is only my interpretation of the saving of our government, and perhaps your opinion(s) may differ.